


A Song Made True

by HazelG



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 11:45:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13247556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HazelG/pseuds/HazelG
Summary: “A moment ago, he had been a block of ice, unyielding and rigid. Now, he had become fire, a raging and devastating blaze.”Three defining moments in Jon and Sansa’s relationship.





	A Song Made True

**Author's Note:**

> I always liked the idea of Sansa falling first...

> "He has a song," the man replied. "He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire." – A Clash of Kings, Daenerys IV

 

She found him in the godswood, sitting on the cold rocks by the lake, his head bowed over the hilt of his sword that was propped between his legs. He had been out for hours, blood-red leaves and snow whirling around him in the harsh wind. He wasn’t praying, Sansa knew, as she stood there, watching him, feeling her heart grow to an impossible size at the sight of him.

She wasn’t the first to approach him – Sam had been here, as had been Arya. The former had come back looking forlorn and crestfallen, shaking his head at Sansa’s questioning glance. Arya had looked angry. Her ire hadn’t subsided even after fighting a dozen men in the courtyard and she had walked past a bewildered and hurt Gendry without a look, much less a greeting.

“How could they? How could they have done this to him?” her sister hissed in outrage, as she strode across mother and father’s old rooms. She had burst in without knocking and immediately entered into a tirade against Stark and Targaryens alike, going around in circles in the room, from the door to the chimney, to the window and back again. Sansa hadn’t seen her sister this agitated since their childhood days. “Father – he lied to him his entire life! And Aunt Lyanna – she was always held up as this strong, beautiful, honourable woman. And yet, she ran off with a married man and started a war!”

“They weren’t the only reason for the war”, Sansa interjected, trying to be rational. “Rhaegar and Lyanna running of were just sort of a catalyst.” Even as she said it her insides were twisting painfully. Arya was having none of it anyway.

“Rhaegar abandoned his wife!”, she countered. “And Lyanna was all for it, as long as she could be with her _one true love_.” The last was said in derision. “Did they not have the sense to see what it would lead to?”

“Well… they were in love.”

Arya stopped mid-stride to the window and turned to Sansa, giving her an incredulous look, before she changed her route – this time striding from the table in the middle of the room, to the alcove, to the big chest at the foot of the bed. “How much can a man be worthy of love if he abandons all his duties, an _entire kingdom_ , _and_ his wife and infant baby son?”, she said contemptuously.

“Maybe Aunt Lyanna didn’t have your standards of a worthy man”, Sansa said and found herself smiling just a little. She had been witness to Arya’s reunion with Gendry, the blacksmith. Robert Baratheon’s strong, handsome bastard son had gone beet red at Arya’s sight, stumbling over his words while Arya had looked flustered, though she had been able to hide it better.

Arya ignored the hint – as she had all of Sansa’s attempts to talk about Gendry – and instead continued: “This isn’t a song, where everyone ends up happily ever after, is it? In a song uncle Brandon and grandfather would not have been killed. That is on Lyanna.”

“I think Aerys had something to do with that as well.” Sansa got up. She was getting dizzy with watching Arya stride from one point of the room to another, like a caged animal.

“Aerys”, Arya scoffed and suddenly her face changed. “The Mad King. Jon’s grandfather. Can you believe it?”

The tone of her voice cut Sansa to the core. She didn’t know what to say or do to make this better. Her thoughts and feelings were a mess she couldn’t make sense of. The shock and disbelief when Bran had told them that Rhaegar was Jon’s father, were nothing compared to the sweet, all-encompassing, overwhelming relief she had felt. It had come unbidden and still made her feel confused and ashamed.

“He is still a Stark, nothing can change that!” Arya was looking at her hard, as if she had been privy to her feelings just now. Did she still think that Sansa would take this as an opportunity to take Jon down? “He is our brother.”

“He’s not our brother”, Sansa said without thinking, without even having formed the thought consciously in her mind. Her breath hitched and she stared at Arya, who was clearly shocked by her statement.

“I –”, Sansa began, struggling to put into words what she wasn’t even able to explain to herself. She was only sure of one thing. “I would never betray him, Arya.”

Arya said nothing. She wasn’t fully prepared to believe her yet. Sansa could see the battle her sister was waging within herself – a battle with Jon on one side and Sansa on the other. If she were to choose, she would always choose Jon. Her love for him was greater than her love for Sansa. It hurt to acknowledge this, but at the same time Sansa was glad for the fierce loyalty Arya exhibited towards Jon. He would need all the loyalty in the world, after the Northern lords found out that he was a Targaryen.

“Remember?”, Sansa said finally, when Arya stayed silent, distrust in her eyes. “The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. I’ll never let anyone rip our pack apart again. And I know that neither will you.”

Arya’s look softened and after a while she nodded.

Sansa turned to go.

“I would leave him alone, if I were you”, Arya said. She was looking out the window again, her back turned towards her. “Neither Sam nor I could even get a monosyllable out of him and you know I’m not one to give up easily. We should let him be alone for a while.”

“He’s been alone for far too long, already. It’s time he stops his brooding.”

Arya was laughing softly when Sansa closed the door. Walking down the many steps to the courtyard, Sansa felt her heart hammering against her chest. She was more nervous than she even wanted to admit to herself. She had no idea what she should do. Not in the political sense, of course. Gods, her mind had already come up with a hundred different scenarios of how this revelation would affect her family, the North and the whole kingdom, not to mention the war they were waging against the White Walkers.

She could have slapped Jon when he had arrived at Winterfell in the company of the dragon queen, Daenerys looking regal and entitled, with Jon traipsing in her wake like a mere accessory rather than the King in the North. Sansa had lost count of how many times the Northeners and wildings alike had derisively called Daenerys not Queen of Dragons but “Queen of damn Savages and Eunuchs” at the welcoming feast. The air had been fraught with tension between their Essos company, Northerners and wildings alike, all eyeing each other suspiciously. Even the Northern houses were not trusting each other completely yet.

She had quarrelled with Jon afterwards, telling him that his absolute ignorance of his people’s feelings had led to his downfall once. He would go down the same path, she yelled, if he continued to do what he thought was right without making the effort to convince the people around him. He had been in her face about the Night King and that he would do whatever it took to defeat this enemy and if this meant bending the knee to Daenerys, so be it.

“How long do you think they’ll listen to you if you continue to ignore them?” she had asked. “If you’re not careful no army will follow you into battle when the enemy arrives at our gates!”

They had parted on bad terms and Sansa had cried herself to sleep that night, not wanting to examine her feelings to closely.

None of _that_ mattered, however, when she walked into the godswood, and saw Jon’s forlorn figure in front of the weirwood tree. Her heart went out to him painfully. All she wanted was to take away any pain he was feeling, make it all go away and protect him for the rest of her life. She was surprised by the intensity of her feelings. Coupled with that immediate feeling of relief she had felt upon learning that _her_ father wasn’t _his_ father, it made her feel increasingly uneasy.

 _You know it_ , her mind whispered. The answer was there, just below the surface of the blustery sea that were her feeling right now. She gritted her teeth, pushed it away. Not now.

Jon didn’t look up as she skirted around the lake in which patches of ice were swimming, didn’t look up as she sat down beside him, arranging her skirts and the long necklace she was wearing around her neck. She had stitched little wolf cubs on the edges of her sleeves and found him glancing at them before he bowed his head to the ground again.

Sansa could feel his detachment. He had been sitting here since dawn, apparently trying to keep his feelings at bay, trying to make sense of what he had been told. Sansa realized that she couldn’t make him come out of his shell this time. He had to do it himself. She just wasn’t prepared to let him sit here alone for another second.

A great lull fell over them. It cradled them like a woollen blanket, though the air was biting cold. They sat in silence for what seemed like a long time, Sansa shifting every now and then, Jon barely moving a muscle.

When he finally spoke, breaking the comfortable hush, his voice was painfully even and hoarse, as if he hadn’t talked in hours – which was probably the case. “I’ve told you a hundred times – I’m not a Stark. Believe me now?”

She looked up, not even hiding her surprise, or the ire that followed immediately after. She had to resist the sudden urge to slap him. He looked up then, his face drawn and long. Yet, upon seeing her face, he drew back a little.

“You’re angry”, he said, surprised.

She pressed her lips together. _Yes, you fool!_ She wanted to scream at him. _You proper fool! After all this time, how can you still think that?_

“You are a fool”, she found herself saying, exasperated.

Jon smiled mirthlessy. “That sounds about right.”

Sansa was mightily tempted to start a fight, right then. It would help him process his feelings at least, but there was something more important that she needed to make him understand, once and for all.

 _I’m a fool, too_ , she thought. A fool for thinking a few months could erase a whole childhood as a bastard. A bastard she and her mother had done everything to ignore.

Taking a deep breath – her body was trembling – she began: “The day they executed father” – he looked up again, clearly not having expected their conversation to go _there_ , and whatever he saw in her face – his right hand immediately left the sword hilt and found hers. She gripped it hard.

“The day they executed father”, she said again, more forcefully, taking strength from his touch. “I found myself utterly alone in this world. Our whole household was murdered, Septa Mordane, all of our guards – Fat Tom and Vayon Poole – every familiar and kind face I knew from Winterfell. Jeyne was taken and Arya disappeared. My whole world was obliterated. The _North_ was obliterated. I was alone at a place where one misstep could mean death, or worse. I so longed for home! For mother and Robb and Arya and Bran and Rickon. For Winterfell. Even for you.” She glanced at him them. His eyes were still guarded, but one corner of his mouth gave a short, almost imperceptible upward curve. It disappeared immediately.

“I wanted to come to King’s Landing – to you and Arya. To get you away, to protect you. I’m sorry I didn’t”, he said. Sansa couldn’t bear to hear the guilt in his voice. She shook her head.

“I’m not. You had just been made a brother of the Night’s Watch. They would have caught and killed you.” She shuddered at the thought. “And besides, you were only fifteen.”

Jon gave a short laugh. “So was Robb. And still he assembled an army and was undefeated until…”

“Until the Red Wedding”, Sansa finished what he hadn’t been able to say. She swallowed. “Arya was there, did you know?”

Jon flinched visibly, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down forcibly. “Gods, she was barely eleven years old!”

“She has nightmares. Sometimes, she lets me hold her at night.” Sansa felt tears pricking behind her eyes and for a moment, they fell silent, listening to the breeze that rustled the leaves of the weirwood tree, Sansa listening to his breath. It was such a comforting sound, to have him by her side, alive and well.

Finally, she spoke again. “I learned a lot during this time. I learned to become someone else entirely, to never let people see what I truly felt and thought. I learned how to suspect the worst of people and their motives.” She took a deep breath. “You know when all of that changed?”

He drew back slightly, his grip on his sword and her hand loosened a bit. He looked as if he wanted to hear what she would say and was afraid of it at the same time.

“When I came to Castle Black. When I met you.”

His gaze was intense, she couldn’t make herself look away from those eyes that bore into her, right to her soul. She trusted him with everything, with her whole being, she realized suddenly.

“All that time I didn’t fully comprehend what it would mean to see you again. I was afraid – of how you would react. Would you take me in? Would you accept me even after I never accepted you?”

He made to say something, but she shook her head, stood up and knelt before him. She touched his hand on the sword and he let her pull it out of the earth and lean it against the white root stems beside him. He drew back slightly as she laid a hand on each of his knees, looking up. It was harder to say what she needed him to hear looking him straight in the eyes but she had to do it the right way. How many times had she told him what he was to her? How many times had he deflected her words, had not believed her?

“As soon as I was in your arms, for the first time, since that day in front of Baelor’s Sept, I felt safe again. I felt whole.” She was having difficulty saying what she wanted to say with the lump in her throat. “I found you, Jon. You may not be my brother – I’m not sure, if you ever truly felt like that to me, but on that day at Castle Black I found home, I found family. You _are_ my family – nothing can change that. Not who your father is, or your mother.”

She had said what she wanted to say, it had taken more courage than she thought she possessed, but there it was, out in the open. She felt a tremor go through his body. His hands came up around her face and Sansa straightened up, meeting him halfway until their foreheads were touching. Eyes closed, she felt his warm breath on her face as he exhaled and it seemed as if he was only now starting to properly breathe again.

His hands were soft on her face. Sansa wanted to be nearer, feel more of him. Afraid of her feelings, she drew back and he let her go, his eyes opening.

“Daenerys is also family”, he said slowly.

Sansa squashed down that jealousy hard. “She is.”

He took a deep breath. “I – she – when I was away…”

She didn’t need to hear it from his lips, didn’t want to and quickly shook her head. “I know”, she said simply.

He gave a start and jumped up so quickly that Sansa almost stumbled backwards as he strode a few feet away, his back to her.

“You know.” It was only half a question.

“I can see the way she looks at you. It was clear that something had happened.”

His shoulders set in a rigid line.

“Something, yes. I slept with my own aunt.”

“You didn’t know.” Again, she tried to be reasonable as she had tried to reason with Arya. Like Arya, he didn’t want to reason.

“I should have”, he said forcefully.

Sansa stood up, exasperation creeping in again. Gods, he and Arya were so much alike. “That doesn’t make any sense, Jon. How could you ever have suspected anything like this?”

He turned then, his eyes found hers. But where they had been guarded before, there were now burning. A moment ago, he had been a block of ice, unyielding and rigid. Now, he had become fire, a raging and devastating blaze.

“It _never_ should have happenend, no matter what. I don’t know – I don’t know how to deal with it.” There was desperation in his voice.

Sansa didn’t make her way towards him – he’d likely push her away. _How could they have done that to you?_ she echoed Arya’s earlier thoughts. If someone – anyone – had been honest, Jon would never have had to go though the fire he was now walking in. For the first time, she allowed that thought to enter her mind – the thought she had repressed since hearing the truth.

_Maybe his despair is for her. Because he feels that he can’t have her now._

Her heart was beating fast, but she had to say what she knew to be true. “Jon, you must know… that if you do want her… if you love her, I will support you. And so will Arya and Bran, I’m sure of it.” And in that moment, Sansa knew. The realization crept up on her like a warm spring’s wind. It was a caressing touch and it filled her with knowing and certainty. She let the realization break though the surface at last – but the sea wasn’t blustery anymore. From one moment to the other, it had become a perfect calm water. _I love you_ , she thought.  

Jon was staring at her. Sansa wasn’t able to conceal anything – he would see the love in her eyes, but he wouldn’t think it more than a sister’s devotion. It was all she could ever hope for from him and this, too, she accepted in that moment. If it was Daenerys he wanted, Daenerys he loved, she really would support him.

“I despise myself, how can you not?” he said at last, hands balled into fists at his sides.

“I want you to be happy.”

It was as simple as that. Jon’s face was an open book – a myriad of emotions crossed his face, he let her see each and everyone of them. His hands opened.

Sansa had promised herself that she wouldn’t ask it, yet standing there, looking at the broad lines of his shoulders, seeing the intense look he was giving her, she couldn’t help it. She needed to know. It wouldn’t matter, in the end – but still, she needed to know.

“Do you?” She hesitated. He didn’t understand her question and she was forced to clarify, even though her courage almost failed her at the last second. “Do you – love her?”

He looked at her then, and his look was full of meaning she couldn’t understand, full of a promise, both were not ready to acknowledge. She trembled, but she was ready.

“No”, he said at long last and she knew that he was being truthful.

Time seemed to come to a standstill, the wind that had been howling in the distance stopped tearing at their clothes and they found themselves all alone in the world. It lasted only a second, it lasted an eternity.

“I’m glad to hear it”, Sansa found herself saying, her voice carefully neutral, “for your sake.”

The moment had passed. Everything had seemed possible in that moment. Even throwing her arms around him and kissing him and have him kiss her back. But the moment had passed. Sansa knew that it could never be.

“She can’t know.”

Sansa didn’t need to ask whom he meant. She nodded, her insides turning cold.

“If she finds out about the marriage, about me – me being the heir”, he stopped, looking bewildered, as if the thought was still a joke to him. “She won’t take it well. We can’t lose her armies or her dragons, else the north will be doomed. “I won’t bed her again”, he said and met her eyes. Sansa looked away. Again, she nodded.

“Sansa…”

She looked up at the tone in his voice. Again, his demeanor had changed. Gone was the ice, gone the fire, and instead there was Jon Snow, the man she loved. Brave and gentle and strong. All of a sudden, her father’s words came to her, uttered in a different world.

He took her hand. She waited for him to say something but it seemed as if he didn’t know what he wanted to say himself. They stood there, hands entwined, and found a moment of peace in the midst of the chaos erupting around them. There was a lot to talk about, to sort out, to plan, but for now they had said enough. For now, each other’s company was all they needed.

When they finally turned to leave, they found Arya and Sam standing in the distance, watching them. Sansa wanted to withdraw her hand but Jon wouldn’t let her. _Stay_ , his eyes said.

Arya had a strange look on her face, Sam seemed apprehensive and relieved.

“Some scouts have arrived”, he said, when they had reached them, Jon still gripping her hand hard. “They are waiting in the solar with Ser Jaime and Lady Brienne. I’m afraid the news is bad.”

The war outside had caught up with them again.

Jon straightened his shoulders, ready to don his Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North mask again, but before he did, he gave her a slight smile that made Sansa’s stomach do somersaults. She let him go and watched him walk determinedly towards Winterfell’s walls.

Arya held her back, contemplating her thoughtfully. Sansa grew uncomfortable under her sister’s scrutiny.

“Yes”, Arya said after a while, more towards herself than to Sansa, then smiled without humour. “I see.”

“You see – what?” Sansa was afraid to hear the answer.

“Maybe he really isn’t our brother after all. At least not to you”, Arya said.

Sansa wanted to deny it but she knew there was no use with Arya.

“Arya, please. You can’t…” She couldn’t finish her sentence.

“Don’t worry – he won’t hear it from me. He’s been through enough already. Don’t you dare burden him with this, too. Consider yourself warned.”

In the distance, Jon turned his head slightly and looked back. He was too far away to have heard anything, but the look he gave her was so gentle that it made her want to cry.

“You don’t need to worry”, Sansa heard herself say. “I told you I will never betray him. Not in any way.”

She left Arya standing there, amidst the snow and the red leaves, under the watchful eye of the old gods. She had loved Jon from the moment she had set eyes upon him, she realized now, although back then, she hadn’t been able to pinpoint the feelings.

She knew there was no hope. But it didn’t matter. At last, she had found love. At last, she knew how it should actually feel like. He was a song that had been made true at last. No one could take that away from her.

She walked towards Winterfell, she walked towards Jon.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote and re-wrote this several times and the ending was the hardest bit. I really hope it hasn’t turned out too cheesy (though I may have failed)! As always when I write a fic, I really had to resist the urge to follow new plot lines and bunnys (I really wanted to delve into the politics of Jon’s decision for example!) and Arya’s little dramatic speech in the end is one example.  
> This will be three parts, but each chapter can stand on its own. This is more of a precaution than anything else as I don’t know when I’ll actually write the next two parts.  
> Please let me know any mistakes I may have made as this is un-betaed.


End file.
